The Nightman Cometh

The 13th Shanghai Biennale cooperated with the artist Yang Fudong in a public welfare short film - "Art, Art, Art...".

A 15 part film featuring scenes from Xianghe, running from the mundane to the surreal: people parade in opera costumes, slaughter pigs in public and dine on the fields; they bury the dead and get married, tickling the bride and groom, everything done without speech. Sitting somewhere between intimate personal reels and detached ethnographic records, the work creates a simultaneous sense of immersion and distance – of the type you might associate with end-of-life flashbacks. Yang gives nostalgia a fantastic, mystical bent, as if to suggest that to revel in memory is a creative act.

Yang Fudong, one of the most influential contemporary artists in China, is known for his epic black-and-white films and photographs, which straddle the worlds of contemporary art installation and cinema. Moving Mountains is a 46-minute, black-and-white film, accompanied by photographs from the film set, drawings and props. The film is inspired by the ancient tale of a man, seeking to move a mountain, and extolls the virtues of perseverance and collective action. The artist makes this story a poetic reflection upon human nature and the shifting values to which it can be subjected.

Dawn Breaking is the opening chapter of Yang Fudong’s Museum Film Project. "The film in its final version is something different from the dailies showing the process of making it."

Two young men wear the uniform of 70’s policeman, sometimes they look like runaway criminal. They want to escape reality which is impossible to cast off. They yearn for the bright sunshine life, expecting the time to be captured, to exchange for a calmness of the heart.

The film 'Seven Intellectuals In Bamboo Forest' is based on the history of seven talented intellectuals from the ancient Chinese Wei and Jin Dynasties. Ruan Ji, Ji Kang, Shan Tao, Liu Ling, Ruan Yan, Xiang Xiu and Wang Rong were famous poets and artists at that time. Open and unruly, they used to gather and drink in the bamboo forest, singing songs and playing traditional Chinese musical instruments, in the hope of escaping from earthly life. They pursued individuality, freedom, and liberty. Their remarkable talent and passion made them a notable group in Chinese history. Part 5 is about the return to the city and to reality. We live in the city and belong to it. If any problem arises, we are able to solve it.

The film 'Seven Intellectuals In Bamboo Forest' is based on the history of seven talented intellectuals from the ancient Chinese Wei and Jin Dynasties. Ruan Ji, Ji Kang, Shan Tao, Liu Ling, Ruan Yan, Xiang Xiu and Wang Rong were famous poets and artists at that time. Open and unruly, they used to gather and drink in the bamboo forest, singing songs and playing traditional Chinese musical instruments, in the hope of escaping from earthly life. They pursued individuality, freedom, and liberty. Their remarkable talent and passion made them a notable group in Chinese history. Part 4 is about the idea of living on an island with no one else, avoiding the hustle and bustle of the busy metropolis. In Chinese legend, there is an island of Peach Blossoms - the very ideal place to live, where one's thoughts can fly freely.

Multi-channel video installation (4 overhead projectors, 19 TV sets). Yang Fudong captures the poetic sentiment that arises in moments of individual encounter with the real world, and his own expression of the world inside him. His artistic practice engages in a temperamental dialogue with the traditional culture and literature of China. Yang Fudong constructs a potential platform for dialogue and negotiation between the self and external reality. In so doing, he does not propagate ？xed believes or dogmas. His work is based on process, on what he learns from ceaseless study, observation, and involvement with his social environment and the way it relates to the individual.

Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest has five parts. The series was finished in 2007 and shown as whole in the Venice Biennale the same year. Yang Fudong uses myths, individual memories and experiences as means to study identity and how it may be formed. In his films the spectator can sense the contradictions in the present and past China. Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest, Part 1, was filmed on the Yellow Mountain. The mountain has a significant status in the traditional Chinese painting. The scenery, the not so clear motives of each character in the film combined with the music creates an almost poetic atmosphere.

Liu Lan tells a story about the break with tradition in China. An intellectual in a white suit meets a traditionally dressed woman in the countryside. Despite their mutual love, their lives seem incompatible. A woman’s voice sings a folksong, Why are people in love always separated from one another?’ The film’s atmosphere is melancholy and the landscape veiled in mist. Here Yang Fudong shows his connections with Chinese landscape painting.

Multi-channel video, 35mm, B&W, 8-11 mins...She rises gently, her hair tousled by the wind; gracefully, she picks up a handkerchief and wipes her brow; sunlight catches the wall across from her and lingers there for a while.

“For my work for films4peace, I considered certain visual metaphors. Compared with the eternity of the universe, human life is short, very short. Our existence is like a grain of sand in a desert or a speck of stone on the rock that makes the world. Conflict and destruction seems absurd if you consider the insignificance of our time on earth. Let us distance ourselves from oppression and slaughter. The creation of world peace is more important for all humankind. In my film, huge boulders slowly rise up amidst a chaotic noise that drifts in and out. Human life is not always beautiful, more often than not, we are simply trying to survive, allowing our lives to continue and nothing more.” —Yang Fudong

The film 'Seven Intellectuals In Bamboo Forest' is based on the history of seven talented intellectuals from the ancient Chinese Wei and Jin Dynasties. Ruan Ji, Ji Kang, Shan Tao, Liu Ling, Ruan Yan, Xiang Xiu and Wang Rong were famous poets and artists at that time. Open and unruly, they used to gather and drink in the bamboo forest, singing songs and playing traditional Chinese musical instruments, in the hope of escaping from earthly life. They pursued individuality, freedom, and liberty. Their remarkable talent and passion made them a notable group in Chinese history. In Part 3 these 7 young people try to change their identity and have a different life. They choose to live in China's Southwestern villages, where they can get closer to nature, and to their own hearts.

The film 'Seven Intellectuals In Bamboo Forest' is based on the history of seven talented intellectuals from the ancient Chinese Wei and Jin Dynasties. Ruan Ji, Ji Kang, Shan Tao, Liu Ling, Ruan Yan, Xiang Xiu and Wang Rong were famous poets and artists at that time. Open and unruly, they used to gather and drink in the bamboo forest, singing songs and playing traditional Chinese musical instruments, in the hope of escaping from earthly life. They pursued individuality, freedom, and liberty. Their remarkable talent and passion made them a notable group in Chinese history. Part 2 exposes closed city life in a noisy metropolis, such as Shanghai. The 7 young people live in the city, but seem to have little connection with the city.

This video appears to be a humorous stylistic reference to spy films. All the clichés – tension, eroticism, grave, cigarette-smoking men and atmospheric music – are present. The woman wears fishnet hose and a fur coat with her military uniform. This ambiguity of seduction and deceit is not only the earmark of espionage, but possibly also a metaphor for the present ambivalent situation in China.

Father’s Fireworks is a short film the artist edited out of footage of daily life that he had previously shot. The film first depicts a worrisome and loving letter written by Yang Fudong's father to Yang Fudong through textual still frames, after which it shows the artist’s father setting off fireworks in celebration of the New Year.